Bravo Fleet
Like the eager young cadets who graduate from Starfleet Academy as ensigns, Bravo Fleet Academy has been changing and growing these past few weeks. Too, there’s still plenty more for Bravo Fleet Academy to add to our wide-ranging curriculum of offerings. I’ve been instructing cadets and supporting course development at the academy for over seven months now. I have to say it’s been gratifying to encourage our members to try out new skills in creating characters, creating commands and writing. It’s certainly put to the test everything I’ve learned about adult learning and talent development in my other lives. That’s why I was immensely honoured and humbled to step into the role of Academy Commandant.
It’s proven to be a time of change as the Academy staff has newly taken over stewardship of the Starbase Bravo sandbox. Our goal with Starbase Bravo is to maintain it as an ongoing open sandbox that doesn’t rely on direct game manager intervention. In partnership with the Intelligence and Operations departments, the Academy staff will be developing missions that enable our new members to gain exposure to collaborative writing while benefiting from the experience of our more tenured members on SBB. We’ll be experimenting with missions of differing durations and scope in the coming months.
Despite all of this change, I maintain David’s vision to offer meaningful programs at Bravo Fleet Academy that clearly link to the activities we offer in the fleet. As has been shared before, we hope to expand the course offerings to include programs in video gaming, competition development, management of task units, and the development of writing scenarios. We’re also starting to explore the development of quicker lessons that would require less content for each learning.
Academy Crew
In order to continue instructing programs and developing further programs, our academy needs a crew. For as long as I’ve been with the academy, Commander Theo Barrington, aka Heidi, has been supporting instructional design with brainstorming and feedback along with mission planning the next phase of Starbase Bravo. I am pleased to share that Heidi has been elevated to the role of Deputy Academy Commandant to help set the course for the academy’s future.
With the rapid growth in our course offerings, we’re recruiting for Academy Staff Assistants to support the instruction of existing courses, the development of further courses, and the orientation of new members into Starbase Bravo. Ideally, our staff members would benefit from experience in Moodle or other learning management systems, experience in instructional design, or effective communicators who have a passion for mentoring and guiding eager learners. If you’re interested in applying to the Academy staff, feel free to DM myself (Brendan) or Heidi on Discord. You can also fill out an application.
Learning is the currency of the twenty-fifth century. As Captain Picard famously said, “We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.” At Bravo Fleet Academy, our collaborative goal is the same: to equip our cadets to sharpen their skills while our academy staff are also working to better themselves as mentors, educators and guides.